What to do with Khalisti Wharf? (Suggestions within)

Hello all.

As the title suggests, I've had some thoughts about the wonderful Khalisti Wharf zone.

First of all, I'd like to say that it's a true marvel and model of where zone building had gotten to in terms of developing what seemed like a somewhat realistic layout for the area, broken up between industrial and residential then business districts, like a much broader version of Atlas Park Revamped. It's bustling with personality and atmosphere and there's some smartly reused assets from Praetoria with the main tower and the really well rendered Statesman statue.

But the zone is largely...inactive.

Obviously for roleplayers such as myself, an empty zone with tons of space is great to work with and means you can do a lot there, but I don't know if there's any plans afoot to try and rejuvenate it with content and/or activity. When I visited it, there was already a heavily glitched intersection with cars and trucks just circling through each other.

So here comes my suggestion and it may not be popular, but here goes.

Housing and spaces.

I've already posted over in the Base forum whether any possibility exists for seperating SuperGroup bases from individual space use to enable people to have their own unfettered access to personalise a space without altinvite commands or the like, so that might answer the question quickly.

But if you combined that with adding ambient interiors like lobbies or cinema foyers to even things like the indoor arboretum, the area could get use just in a social sense, not just for roleplayers and have a viable future other than something that's looked at as something that 'could've been'. I don't know all the feasibility of that, or how much of my suggestion could be enacted, but Khalisti Wharf deserves more than just a 'visit once, never again' experience.

S.

That would probably take too much work without an actual dev team.  Someone would have to program and design all those features and assets, despite how neat it'd be.

I think I have two realistic options they could use it for.

1)  If they exist and are usable, maybe populate the zone with the unused I24 mobs.  If any Battalion mobs are actually in the game, it'd be cool to be able to fight them somewhere.

2)  The Homecoming team has expressed interest in running events.  KW would be a great place to do so.  There's zero ambient mobs to interfere with the event and, conversely, hosting it there would give zero interference to anyone in other zones not doing/not interested in the event.  So like, if they felt like having us fight 40 Tyrants, they could spawn them there without any risk of ruining someone's regular play experience.

I just commented something related in another thread. Basically turn it into a GC type starting map. Or maybe have it be part of the EAT origin tutorial I just wrote about creating. Either will require lots of work from those who would be creating content though.

circle of thorns agony mage nudist resort

Two tiers of radio missions:

* Normal level 45 up radio and newspaper missions.    Wide array of villain groups to make it more interesting than PI.     Allow heroes/villains to work together on missions without having to change alignment.

*  Incarnate Level Radios - Mobs are level 52 at +0.     Make xp gains the same as a normal radio mission so it isnt abused.  This is mostly for the challenge.

and 

Incarnate Level Contacts/Mission Arcs

On 5/11/2019 at 8:30 PM, Rumors said:

That would probably take too much work without an actual dev team.  Someone would have to program and design all those features and assets, despite how neat it'd be.

 

I think I have two realistic options they could use it for.

 

1)  If they exist and are usable, maybe populate the zone with the unused I24 mobs.  If any Battalion mobs are actually in the game, it'd be cool to be able to fight them somewhere.

 

2)  The Homecoming team has expressed interest in running events.  KW would be a great place to do so.  There's zero ambient mobs to interfere with the event and, conversely, hosting it there would give zero interference to anyone in other zones not doing/not interested in the event.  So like, if they felt like having us fight 40 Tyrants, they could spawn them there without any risk of ruining someone's regular play experience.

I'd be quite ok with 1. For the second, they are already zones they can use for that. Like the echo of Galaxy City.  There are plenty of ways there already but for an event, they could just plop a portal right next to Ms Liberty.

2 hours ago, Elthenar said:

 

I'd be quite ok with 1. For the second, they are already zones they can use for that. Like the echo of Galaxy City.  There are plenty of ways there already but for an event, they could just plop a portal right next to Ms Liberty.

Echo of Galaxy City isn't reachable by villains.

17 minutes ago, Apparition said:

 

Echo of Galaxy City isn't reachable by villains.

Have to be honest. For a second there I forgot villains existed

KW's already used, somewhat sparingly, for events - I *want* to say by devs, but definitely by players, as well. I know I've seen costume contests there as well as RP SG "recruitment events," specifically because it *is* empty and reachable by both sides.

(Personally, I could do with never seeing or hearing the Battalion or the phrase "coming storm" again. After reading the original team's plans for them, I was just... ugh.)

I think the biggest "glitch" with Khalisti Wharf is the inability of Praetorians to go there. They can go to Pocket D so it may be possible. If it is to be used as a gathering place that will probably have to be addressed. It is already in the pool of potential mission locations as I have been assigned door missions there several times. Perhaps some existing contact that is not currently being used could be moved there and assign missions there, maybe something that was removed in a past update but still in the Database.

Also, kickable BIG GIANT BALL in the harbor between the Blue and Red sides, perfect place and it has been on the Wishlist since early LIVE.

5 hours ago, Greycat said:

KW's already used, somewhat sparingly, for events - I *want* to say by devs, but definitely by players, as well. I know I've seen costume contests there as well as RP SG "recruitment events," specifically because it *is* empty and reachable by both sides.

 

(Personally, I could do with never seeing or hearing the Battalion or the phrase "coming storm" again. After reading the original team's plans for them, I was just... ugh.)

Any place one can read up on said plans?  Wondering if we might have dodged a bullet.

5 hours ago, Greycat said:

(Personally, I could do with never seeing or hearing the Battalion or the phrase "coming storm" again. After reading the original team's plans for them, I was just... ugh.)

Ditto.  Such...oh just crap.

41 minutes ago, dangeraaron10 said:

Any place one can read up on said plans?  Wondering if we might have dodged a bullet.

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Lore_AMA

After the Cataclysm, some of the ex-devs answered lore questions about the (now-abandoned) future plans for the game. The bits about the Coming Storm and the Batallion are mixed in with a bunch of other stuff, so you have to read all the AMA's to get the full picture. Not that reading the whole thing is a bad thing at all, it is an interesting read.

Personally I am not quite as disenchanted with the CS/Batallion ideas as Greycat and Darmian, but I definitely agree that the Coming Storm was way more dramatic in my imagination than in the ideas presented by Positron & Co. It seems like Yet Another Undefeatable Alien Invasion that humanity somehow averts because plot power.

1 hour ago, Icono04 said:

Personally I am not quite as disenchanted with the CS/Batallion ideas as Greycat and Darmian, but I definitely agree that the Coming Storm was way more dramatic in my imagination than in the ideas presented by Positron & Co. It seems like Yet Another Undefeatable Alien Invasion that humanity somehow averts because plot power.

I'm not disenchanted with the idea per se, just with the attempted explanations of how it might occur.  An endless series of BIGGER BADDER MOAR is frankly tedious. And don't get me started on the Dimensionless rubbish.  The seeds are planted in the game, they could and can be amazing IMO as long as the current devs are not slavishly locked into giving us what the Lore AMAs talk about.

BIGGER BADDER MOAR is, in essence, despite the best storytelling intentions of the OG devs, locked into a cycle of getting you to pay more for the next big thing, possibly leading to the end of COH in a "natural" way and the arrival of COH2.

The thing is, right now, even with the tiny dev team we have, there is a chance, a wonderful chance, to break that cycle, to deliver something not seen before, that isn't tied to that "keep the players paying" mentality.  And I hope it is grasped firmly.

36 minutes ago, Darmian said:

An endless series of BIGGER BADDER MOAR is frankly tedious.

That's been the game since day one, more or less.

Minor suggestion;

Move BaB to Khallisti and remove Fusionette

6 minutes ago, Take One said:

That's been the game since day one, more or less.

Yes.  But in the unique situation we are currently in it doesn't have to be that way anymore. There is a chance - maybe I'm just off on my own on this - of taking a different path now, one not slaved to that mechanic, one that can just expand the game and not drive it along the same worn path. Fair enough, maybe many want that path, but why should it be the only one?

1 hour ago, Take One said:

That's been comics since day one, more or less.

Fixed that for you. 😛 

58 minutes ago, Darmian said:

But in the unique situation we are currently in it doesn't have to be that way anymore.

I would be fine just expanding the game forever, going "wider" instead of going "taller", if you excuse my Civilization terminology. There's a lot more between Heaven and Earth, etc. We don't need to go to other dimensions or into space, there ought to be plenty of adventures left on Primal Earth.

3 hours ago, Tyrannical said:

Minor suggestion;

Move BaB to Khallisti and remove Fusionette

What difference would that make to anything?  Why not just finally retire BAB (and close out the chapter after his beating) and put Marauder in there as a trainer instead of Fusionette, since there's a heavy Praetorian refugee influence in KW anyway?

I like Fusionette in Kallisti Wharf.  I would rather see BABs replace Miss Liberty in Atlas.

8 minutes ago, Apparition said:

I like Fusionette in Kallisti Wharf.  I would rather see BABs replace Miss Liberty in Atlas.

Me too re Fusionette.  I think if BABs gets kept (Still think he should get retired for a bit) then he should be used in some future iteration of Galaxy, like a trainer/contact in part of a reclamation zone.

44 minutes ago, Darmian said:

Me too re Fusionette.  I think if BABs gets kept (Still think he should get retired for a bit) then he should be used in some future iteration of Galaxy, like a trainer/contact in part of a reclamation zone.

I don't think Ms. Liberty can be as easily replaced as she's the location for specific quests.

4 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

I don't think Ms. Liberty can be as easily replaced as she's the location for specific quests.

I don't think she should be replaced either!  I mean she COULD be, as the version of her in Atlas isn't a contact, but so far I see no reason to.

5 hours ago, Take One said:

I would be fine just expanding the game forever, going "wider" instead of going "taller", if you excuse my Civilization terminology. There's a lot more between Heaven and Earth, etc. We don't need to go to other dimensions or into space, there ought to be plenty of adventures left on Primal Earth.

The first part is the way the game generally *was* growing - and I appreciated it. It's not just a Civ thing, either. Other MMOs (especially the more gear-based ones) had to keep going "taller" - raising the level cap, with more gear, so you now have the shinier broadsword of slashiness +37 to get (and throw away the old pokier pike of puncturing +30 that used to be so good.) COH gave more to do (and made exemping and SKing simple.)

I somewhat disagree with the last, though. While I do agree we could expand out more on Earth (Blood of the Black Stream, for instance, which is touched on in lore and in game just a little - check out the Eye of Horus oil spill in Oakes, plus references to Gadzul Oil redside - is based in Egypt,) both space (moon bases!) and other dimensions are very comic book - and very much a part of COH. And give more flexibility in *how* to grow "wider" at all levels.

It's why I'm rather glad we *didn't* have the next tier of the Incarnate tree (past hybrid) show up - from the AMAs, it sounded like that would just keep going up and up, which would just mean the content would get less and less accessible. I wouldn't mind exploring some of the other ideas, I just hated the thought of "And now you need MOAR POWER SUPER SAYAN GOD MODE +300!" working into the game.